In the Public Interest

If only the two scenes could be seen side by side. On one side would be pictures of badly injured men, women and children trying to have their day in court against heavily organized manufacturers charged with making or selling hazardous autos, drugs, power presses, chemicals, power lawnmowers and a myriad of other misconstructed products.…

Drew Lewis, the Secretary of Transportation has submitted his letter of resignation to President Ronald Reagan after serving 23 months. In that period he has wrecked more havoc on the Depart­ment’s crucial safety responsibilities and programs than all of his predecessors combined back to 1968. In early 1981, after being in office less than a…

Lobbyists for Common Cause, the citizens group, suffered from an uncommon pause of common sense when they stood outside the House of Representatives on December 14th urging the legislators to raise their own pay by $9138 a year. “Sycophantic”, declared an advocate for a citizen group opposing the salary hike. Another opponent argued that the…

The fastest growing industry in the United States is the production of victims. The factories are along the banks of the Potomac and part of the Reagan Administration, In 1983 Reaganism seems determined to accelerate the size of the underclass and the defenseless. Take as exhibit one, the following statement: “The November rise in the…

At 11 a.m. on Thursday, February 15, 1979, the fiveCommissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) heard a presentation from NRC engineer Demetrios L. Basdekas that must have chilled them into numbing inaction. At least that is the charitable view. For had the NRC been less secretive and more forthright, the nuclear superhawks inside and…

FOR THE PAST 20 years, Stanley Weiss built up a prosperous mineral processing company. But today he has his mind on another subject and is asking: What are business executives doing about the specter of nuclear war? His answer: virtually nothing. Like you and me. Weiss reads the newspapers. He knows about the anti-nuclear arms…

ON NOV. 2, Sen. William Prox­mire, 11-Wis., won re-election to his fifth term in the U.S. Senate. His entire campaign expense was less than $150. That’s right, less than $150. And he won by 64.5 percent of the vole cast. Other senatorial incumbents were spending one to three or more million dollars on their campaigns.…

POLITICAL ANALYSTS were having difficulty reading any trends or Meaning into the results of the 1982 congressional elections. Vague­ness of commentary was the order of the day. Bill Moyers saw the election as reflecting the pragmatism of the voters. George Will called the voters’ reaction a continent-wide shrug. The Democrats did make sizable gains in…

MORE THAN ONE General Motors executive is having difficulty these days thinking about GM diesels without also wondering about Diane Halferty and her Seattle-based group “Consumers Against General Motors” (CAGM). The giant auto company has taken out newspaper ads in 16 Northwest cities and sent four of its officials to negotiate with Halferty’s group, which…

The unemployment level, it is widely agreed, is a major issue in the imminent midterm congressional elections. Yet recent press reports conclude that unemployed workers are expected to stay away from the polls in record numbers. What difference do elections make to their plight, many of those interviewed asked. Political analysts tell us that the…